Moving alongside Silva, it didn’t take us long to find what she had sniffed out. There were quite a few Undead, led by a single Shattered, scattered around a large building, similar to the YMCA the other group of survivors had occupied all those weeks ago. Only, the Undead didn’t appear to be in their usual holding pattern, wandering around as they repeated whatever their body had done habitually in the area they were in. Instead, they were moving in what I could only identify as a loop, walking in circles around the area, as if there was something keeping them here.

Curious about what was going on, I decided to do a few tests, partially because there were still quite a few things I wanted to test after crossing the divide and partially because I wanted to know what made these Undead different from their brethren. Or maybe why they acted differently, there might not be an actual difference.

But whatever the case, the first thing I did was target the Shattered and launch my Frozen Shuttle at it. Immediately, I realised that the shuttle needed some tuning, my power was a little too much for it, judging by the glittering sparks it trailed on its way to the Shattered. That normally only happened when I used Overflow to push as much Astral Power as possible in an attack with it, only that I wasn’t doing that. Apparently, my power had increased to the point that a usual attack with it had the same effect as an overpowered one had before I crossed the divide, with the same side-effects, namely the shedding of excess Astral Power as sparkling glitter. Maybe there was a way to turn that excess into something useful, like a temporary increase of the Shuttle’s durability, or its velocity or something along those lines, but that was for later research. For now, the shuttle worked as intended, only it didn’t work as well as intended. Runes, inscribed into the shuttle, might be the way to go. But later.

My attack struck the Shattered in the torso, easily piercing through its chest and spine, sending it to the ground. It had been incredibly low-levelled, barely level twenty, making me wonder how it had survived. There had to be people out here who hunted them, right? But maybe that was the reason why the Shattered and its Undead were in this area, they might have fled from the Withered or even from survivors hunting them. The idea brought a grin to my face, the image of a bunch of ragged survivors running after the Shattered and its herd of Undead like some sort of primitive hunters running after their prey was just amusing. A much better image than that of a bunch of Undead shambling after a group of desperate survivors who wanted to do nothing but escape. Luckily, the Undead were rather slow and while Shattered had okay explosive strength, to lunge or strike, their actual, sustained footspeed was pathetic.

Softly whistling to myself, I decided that the Shuttle didn’t really need more testing. As I pulled it back, I let it causally swipe a few of the Undead, just to see how they’d react and was a little surprised when two of the three I struck simply fell over. Sure, their level was far beneath mine but I hadn’t even tried.

But with their level this low, and Silva insisting that we took them down, I decided to get a little more creative. For example, how far could I push the Devour-Rune?

Flicking my fingers, I quickly drew a simple runic formation of Devour, Curse and Darkness into the air, focusing on one of the nearby Undead before channelling power into it. I could faintly feel Titanic Ambition supercharging me, my thoughts becoming incredibly clear and my magic brimming with power, as I watched the Shadows rise around the Undead I had targetted. Astral Power was flowing out of me, far more than reasonable for an enemy at this level, but moments later, the flow stopped and the shadows I had conjured disappeared. Blinking in disbelief, I looked at the spot the shadows had been moments earlier, trying to find any remnants of the Undead, only to come up empty. There was nothing left of a human-sized body. Sure, it had taken a good chunk of Astral Power but to simply destroy that much matter was a surprise. One that I wanted to study, I wanted to know where the matter had gone to. Was it truly gone or was it hidden in the shadows somewhere? If it was hidden, could I retrieve the body at a later point? If yes, what state would the body be in, and how much effort was required to retrieve it? Those, alongside a few other questions, might answer whether it was possible to use this idea to create some sort of shadow storage.

The magic bags on Mundus had been rather ubiquitous, but I had never learned how to make one, that knowledge had been monopolised by the Mages’ Guild and hadn’t been easily shared. The Guild had made sure that the bags were cheap, likely to ascertain nobody tried to force them to share the knowledge, but that didn’t help me here. The closest thing I had to that was my book, stored in my soul, and I doubted that was something I could replicate easily. But this, the devouring of a body, might be something I could start working with.

Shaking my head once more, I filed the idea away for later and continued moving towards the building Silva was so focused on. There were a few more Undead and I kept testing things, at times combining runes into new spells, as I made my way forward. One such spell used a combination of cold, wind and blood in an attempt to literally freeze the blood of the Undead in a wide area, though that one wasn’t as efficient as I had hoped. Sure, it worked, but at the end of the day, I could make a lot of things work, if I only threw enough Astral Power into the mix. But just because a spell produced an effect, even if that effect was enough to destroy one of the Undead, didn’t mean it was a useful spell if it took a hundred times the Astral Power I’d normally need. And given how I had dispatched a few of these Undead with just a few points of Astral Power and the frozen shuttle, that was saying something.

As I got close to the building, the scents and noises clued me in to why Silva had guided us here. There were people inside, though they seemed to be rather incompetent, given that they had been surrounded and that there had been no guards in sight. Nor had they challenged me, or destroyed any of the Undead, at least I couldn’t see any bodies.

Whatever the case, it was rather interesting, why were they here and why in this condition? Surely, a group of survivors had the ability to deal with a single Shattered and two dozen of these Undead, they weren’t even high-level.

Wondering about the circumstances, I kept dispatching the Undead, noticing how Lia was moving to the other side of the building, likely to make sure there were no extra Undead over there. More experiments yielded a few more interesting results, showing me once again just how much my power had grown after crossing the Divide, but maybe that was a given. With the points I had spent, I had increased my Intelligence by almost fifty per cent, to say nothing about the increases in my other attributes.

By the time I reached the, admittedly, incredibly heavy door of the building, a community centre as the sign out front told me, my earlier amusement was replaced with a faint annoyance. Even now, there had been no challenge and judging by the dents and scratches in the door, these people were completely content to sit in their hidey-hole and play turtle.

“What is about these people that interests you so?” I asked Silva, wondering why she was so insistent that we had come here. There had to be other human groups out there, but Silva had only been interested in the Army of Dog, never in humans.

Whatever the case, I decided to act completely casual and simply walked up to their door, knocking on it as if there was nothing going on here. As if this was just a normal day and I was a simple visitor, though in that case, I might have simply pushed the door open, or at least tried to.

For a few seconds, nothing happened and I could almost feel the confusion on the other side of the wall, the sensation bringing a grin to my face. Maybe it was part of my newly acquired extra-sensory perception of minds, or maybe the confusion was thick enough to permeate through walls, either way, I had to stifle a giggle.

Just before I could knock again, the door was opened from the inside and I looked at a little girl. Not a petite woman, even if the girl was far too close to my old height to make me comfortable, but a little girl, just a child. Before I could get angry at the adults for sending a child into possible danger, the girl looked at me with wide eyes and asked whether I was a fairy.

For a moment, I couldn’t answer before a soft chuckle escaped me at the absurdity of it all.

“No, little one,” I replied, still chuckling while Silva let out an amused chuff next to me. Realising that these were humans and the night was dark, I decided to show off a bit, reaching out and conjuring a flame in my hand to have some light.

In the short time before my eyes could adjust to the sudden brightness, a voice inside let out a surprised gasp. And called me by my name.

Curious, indeed.